


Obsidian fury

by Ewebie



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, BAMF John Watson, Gen, John Whump, Sherlock Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 12:36:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1510658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ewebie/pseuds/Ewebie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What would it take to break John Watson?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Obsidian fury

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, this is 100% because Reichy wanted it... I'm not going to apologize for it completely, because part of this might end up in one of my WIPs. Probably. Likely. Going to in a slightly different form.
> 
> This is dark. TW: torture, violence, death.
> 
> Look... it's just dark. So if you don't like dark, please don't read it. But I think there's more than one person that's been curious about how far John Watson can be pushed, how much he can actually take, and what it might look like if he did crack. This is just... one potential version.

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” John said flatly.

“Oh, but I think you do know. I think you’ve always known.” The Colonel started to pace, circling behind John. “You forget that I know you. I’ve known you for years. And you think I’d believe that Captain John Watson, Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers would let some burned assassin run off with his own flesh and blood? Please. I want to know where she is,” he hissed in John’s ear. John clenched his jaw and refused to move more than the few muscles it required to continue breathing. The bark of laughter from behind his shoulder should have startled him, a lesser man would have flinched, but John Watson didn’t move, he didn’t flinch, he didn’t start, and he certainly didn’t blink. “Look at you,” the Colonel purred. “You can take the soldier out of the war, but you can’t take the war out of the soldier.”

John winced as the butt of the rifle slammed into the back of his left knee and the joint buckled momentarily. He straightened without unclasping his hands from behind his back, resumed his position at parade rest with minimal excessive movements.

“I’ve thought about it, Captain. How I’d like to torture her.” He rounded on John, meeting him squarely from the front. “Same as she tortured me. But,” he squinted at John. “That is such a messy way to gain information. You were a doctor, Captain.” He tilted his head. “Remind me which vets were worse off. The ones that were invalided home with shrapnel still stuck in their limbs? Or the ones that never felt any physical pain, but carry the complement of mental scars? I hear water boarding is quite effective.”

The muscles around John’s eyes tightened minutely, but he held fast. He’d seen it done before. It wasn’t something he was proud of, something he’d ever endorse, something he’d participate in. But he’d seen it. The commandos actually practiced it. But the surgeons had been too valuable to risk on that kind of training.

“How much damage do you think it does to the brain, Captain?” He turned to the side and whistled, one of the doors opening. “To a good brain? A smart brain?”

John caved, let his eyes flit to the door, catch the image of two men dragging a third between them. The third body was dumped unceremoniously on the floor in the empty space of the room, wet and limp, bruised and bleeding, unconscious but breathing. And it took less than that glance for John to recognize Sherlock. The hardness around his eyes melted momentarily as concern replaced the cool composure for a fraction of a second before returning to dispassionate stone. “I asked you to leave him out of this,” John’s voice was calm, even, wrong.

A bubble of laughter erupted from the Colonel. “Like I left Murray out of it? You did get my message?”

A small tremor of rage shuddered up John’s spine, but he managed to keep it from the creases of his face. But not from his eyes; never from his eyes. His eyes flashed, flinty, cold, raw. “He doesn’t know anything.”

“And now I believe you about that,” the Colonel snapped, then pointed a blunt finger at the spot where Sherlock remained on the floor. “But don’t tell me he’s an innocent, Captain. You know who his brother is. You know what they did. They may as well have stuck the blades in themselves.”

John’s eyes flit to Sherlock, slowly regaining consciousness, slowly coming round, slowly bleeding and shivering on the ground. “He wasn’t involved.”

“Then we’ll call it collateral damage.”

“You would have been better off letting me think he was dead,” John said slowly.

The Colonel smiled, wide, crazy. “That can be arranged. Pick him up,” he barked. Sherlock was awake; John knew it. He was awake and aware. He was thinking; he had to be. How he managed to keep his face slack when the two men hauled him up to his feet was a mystery John never wanted to understand, but he knew Sherlock was there, thinking, calculating, planning. “You like him so much, I’ll let you pick a piece of him to keep.”

John’s eyes snapped back to the Colonel. “Don’t,” he warned.

“You two stay here. Watch him,” the Colonel nodded to the last of the two in the room. “Maybe a finger then, Captain? His left eye?”

John’s arms dropped from where he had them clenched at the small of his back, stiff and ramrod straight at his sides, hands fisted tightly, the tremor of rage causing both to shudder, the only movement in the otherwise statue he manifested. They shifted Sherlock, draping him between them. And when John looked as though he’d take a step forward, the last two men flanked him, making their large presence known in their position. “That would be a mistake, Sir,” John ground out.

“Would it?” The Colonel hefted his rifle up onto his shoulder.

John sniffed once and steeled himself, his spine straighter, his eyes harder, the last remnant of blue darkened to black, his jaw tightened, and the corner of his mouth drew back in a grim impression of a smile. He cocked his head and managed to rotate his gaze without a flicker of movement from anything below his neck. “I won’t let you live to regret this decision.”

The Colonel locked eyes with John, searching, staring, locking will for will with someone he thought he knew. “Take him out back, I’ll shoot him myself.”

John had considered the options, he had played it out in his head twenty times in the blink of an eye, he didn’t like the odds, but anything was better than the first option. As the Colonel turned, his attention diverted, John lashed out. Left boot into the knee of the man at his left. Right fist into the kidney of the man at his right, relieving him of his side-arm as he stumbled. Butt of the gun into the temple of the man at his left; unconscious. Arm lock, pistol into the nape of the neck of the man at his right. “Stop!” John barked, digging the muzzle of the gun into the man’s skin.

The Colonel turned slowly back to John, a deep, angry scowl marring his worn face. “You think I give a shit about him?” he barked. “You were never comfortable with collateral damage, and that’s what made you weak!”

John saw it coming, he knew what was coming and he had only the blink of an eye to compensate. He shifted his feet and pulled the gun out to the side as the Colonel drew his pistol in his left hand, the right cradling the butt of the rifle. The impact as the first bullet struck the man between the eyes was mildly less than the second that hit him in the center of the chest, his weight dropping back into John. He knew it was coming. He had been ready. As the weight came back, John caught it with the left side of his body, aiming around the motion at the two men flanking Sherlock. Shoulder, kneecap, shoulder kneecap.

The noise and flurry of small movements, which would be chaos to someone less experienced, seemed to slow and silence the passage of time for John. The full weight of his hostage slumped back against him as a body shield; one man remained unconscious on the ground to his left; the two men next to Sherlock crumpled toward the ground, their mouths open, likely shouting in pain; Sherlock staggered on his feet, unsteady, but upright; and the Colonel was turning, turning away from John, turning toward Sherlock. No. No, no, no! “SHERLOCK!”

Sherlock’s right hand brushed the wall, his fingers steadying him as he raised his head. John saw the fear, the comprehension. With the dead weight on his left, there was no way John could stop the Colonel. He couldn’t turn fast enough, he couldn’t shoot him, he couldn’t reach him, he couldn’t stop him, he couldn’t… The Colonel’s gun leveled at Sherlock and he swiveled his neck, grinning at John as he pulled the trigger.

There was blood, fresh blood as Sherlock collapsed awkwardly to the ground. He hadn’t reached the floor when the bellow of rage burst out of John. He shoved his shield aside and launched himself at the Colonel. Three quick strides and John propelled himself down, sliding boot first into the man’s ankle, ducking the two wild shots he managed to squeeze off, and as he fell, John popped up to his feet and gripped the muzzle of the rifle in both hands. All of his momentum continuing forward, he swung it around like a baseball bat, connecting with the side of the Colonel’s face with a sickening crack.

 

Pain was something Sherlock knew. He had experienced enough of it to wrap it around himself like a blanket and wallow in its touch. Near drowning had been something new. Choking, gasping, panic. New, but still just pain. It was easy to pretend to be unconscious. Most people would be. Being shifted and dragged hurt, but not enough for Sherlock to object. Then he heard John’s voice.

This was the John Watson that people rarely saw. Quiet rage, stoic passion, cold resolution. Deep down, they must realize he’d be capable of it; he survived war. Weak people did not survive war; they perished in the battles or crumble in the face of their actions. John Watson could deal death as easily and skillfully as he could save a life. And this was the John Watson in the room.

For the most part, they were ignoring him. Using him to unhinge John, but he didn’t need to play an active part; laying on the floor unconscious would be enough. But John’s voice, the tone, the evenness, the rigidity wasn’t normal, it wasn’t right. It wasn’t his Doctor Watson voice or even the Captain voice that Sherlock had heard before. He spoke with gravity and an underlying violence that made his words bleed with their implications.

When they hoisted him up again, the threat of death bringing out what only Sherlock would recognize as murder in John’s voice, he figured it was time to really pay attention. He snuck glances at the room, their position, John’s position, this Colonel. And when John made his move, Sherlock was proud. In action, John was decisive, deliberate, and potent, wasting no energy or motion. His size left him often underestimated, and it was something that he used to his advantage. The Colonel hadn’t expected John to incapacitate the two men so readily, arm himself, protect himself. But it left Sherlock exposed and he knew it.

As the Colonel moved, Sherlock knew the play; remove the hostage from the situation, remove the barter, lay it bare and take control. Sherlock knew it, John knew it. And Sherlock even suspected that John knew what was about to follow. Carefully, Sherlock moved his feet beneath himself, ready to take his own weight. And he did, his footing a little unsteady, the ringing in his ears from the ear-splitting cracks of gunfire causing him to wobble. Sherlock reached a hand back to find the wall, find up and down, look up to find John…

It was on his face. John, his open book; they had miscalculated. Sherlock saw the gun turn his way. Saw John’s look of panic. And then the Colonel turned to gloat. Fool. The pull of the trigger slowed down and Sherlock turned his body. The ache from his ribs caused a hitch in his motion and he didn’t turn far enough. Stupid, Sherlock. Stupid. Pain exploded along the side of his head as the bullet burned a furrow along his scalp. It was a graze; only a graze. But it bled like crazy. All those vessels in the scalp. And Sherlock dropped to keep from receiving a double tap. He caught himself on his hands and stomach, snapping his head up to see something that would haunt him for the rest of his stupid, preposterous life.

Fury that he’d never seen before twisted John’s face. Obsidian eyes in a mask of pure feral wrath led an assault against the Colonel. The Colonel who thought he knew John Watson, thought he could control John Watson, thought he could manipulate him with Sherlock and poor Murray. The Colonel who only saw the armor John wore, and assumed it was simply a bulletproof vest, protection against the constant barrage of worldly assault. But it wasn’t. John wore chainmail to keep the devil in, to protect the world from the horror only he knew he was capable of. Even Sherlock, emotionally stunted, socially graceless, and devotedly blundering as he was, knew better than to peel back that shield. He had never seen that bleak corner of John Watson. He never wanted to again.

Merciless efficiency. John shed his gun and his human shield and took the Colonel out at the knees. Ruthless competence. John disarmed and stunned the man. Callous, unrelenting, murderous skillfulness. John pinned him down and, grappling with proficiency, he strangled him with his bare hands.

Sherlock let out a soft cry as the sounds that had accompanied the battle registered in his conscious brain. The swearing, the yelling, the shrieks of rage, and John’s damaged wail of furor. And the words. The words were wrong. Dead. Murdered. Sherlock. Cuss words Sherlock had never heard before. No. John, no. Not John. Not his John. Sherlock struggled up to his feet. This wasn’t right.

“John! John, stop!” Sherlock hauled him off of the body.

“NO!” John howled like a wounded animal, thrashing, flailing, gnashing his teeth like something wild. “He murdered my friend! He shot Sherlock! He SHOT him!” John’s voice rose to a shriek as he tried to launch himself back at the Colonel.

“No, John,” Sherlock struggled to hold him, to pull him away. One of John’s swings managed to catch Sherlock’s damaged ribs and Sherlock winced, curling to protect his bruised flesh. John nearly broke free, and Sherlock wrapped an arm around John’s waist, throwing him back against the concrete wall.

“SHERLOCK!” John screamed.

In desperation, Sherlock pinned him to the wall with a forearm across his throat. “John, look at me!” he pleaded. John’s hands tore at the arm. “Stop! JOHN!” he bellowed. “I’M HERE!”

John froze, his eyes wide and black, his mouth open. Every line of his body was tension, and for longer than Sherlock could bear to count, John didn’t breathe, didn’t move, didn’t blink.

Sherlock’s brow furrowed. “John? Please.” The silence stretched out in the stillness of the room. Motionless restoration of some semblance of sanity, the black demon battling with its moral captor in relentless fluctuation in John’s eyes.

The air escaped John like a deflating balloon, in sharp staccato bursts. He blinked rapidly and squinted at the dark hair and pale face in front of him. Sherlock eased back, holding both hands up cautiously as John stayed, back against the wall, blinking. “Sherlock?” he croaked.

“It’s alright, John.”

He lifted a hand, his fingers just brushing Sherlock’s bruised cheek, his palms dropping heavily onto Sherlock’s shoulders. “Sherlock?” John repeated as if he didn’t believe it. His brows knit together, worrying as the left corner of his mouth tugged back in a half smile. He woofed out an unnatural laugh as his face crumbled. Sherlock felt John’s fingers tighten on his shoulders then John pulled.

Sherlock winced. Hugs weren’t supposed to hurt. John pressed into Sherlock, arms wrapped around him, his fingers each pressed individually into the muscles of Sherlock’s back. John was crushing him, his face pressed into the crook of Sherlock’s neck, his arms locked around him, his breath still broken, coming in puffs. And he was laughing. John was chuckling. No… Sherlock sucked in a sharp breath as John’s body started to tremble, spreading in from his fingers and up his arms, his spine, down his legs. His whole body shook. John wasn’t laughing, he was crying. He was sobbing. Don’t panic, Sherlock, don’t panic. “It’s alright, John,” he murmured. “You’re alright.”

Like a marionette with its strings cut, John Watson collapsed and Sherlock was only partially ready for it. The two of them dropped to their knees on the hard floor. Sherlock curled his arms protectively around John’s bent spine, the tension gone, the previously solid line now broken. John choked out loud sobs into Sherlock’s shoulder, his grip never wavering, hanging onto Sherlock as if he were the only thing anchoring him to this world. “I’m sorry,” he gasped. Sherlock winced again, this time the pain not physical. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” John repeated between sobs, like a slow mantra of mea culpa.

“John,” Sherlock shushed him, laying his other palm across the back of John’s neck. His exposed neck. That bare and vulnerable part of him that never should be so unguarded. Every apology that spilled from John’s mouth was like the twist of a knife in Sherlock’s side and he needed it to stop. He wanted it to stop. He wanted John to stop crying. “Please, John,” Why? Why wouldn’t he stop? It wasn’t the pain; he’d seen John hurt worse.

“Sherlock, I’m sorry.” The shaking was slowing, but John’s breath still heaved in wet gulps. It was dangerous now, the panic over. Either John would be able to stop or he wouldn’t, either he would find reality or he wouldn’t. Did he even know what he’d just done?

“I’m here, John,” Sherlock whispered, tightening his grip on John, as the other man seemed to unravel; folding the weight of his shorter frame against his torso. “I’m alright too. We’re alright.”


End file.
